Chapter 252 - 182: Talent Enhancement: Fleeting Moment

Chapter 252: Chapter 182: Talent Enhancement: Fleeting Moment

In terms of taste, he could even tell how much seasoning Xiaohai had added to each meal. As for his vision, just now, looking through the window, he could see a single leaf a kilometer away, including the veins on its surface.

His sense of smell had become much more layered and distinct. As his five senses grew preternaturally sharp, the world in Yu Fei’s eyes seemed to become much clearer. It felt less like a simple enhancement and more like an elevation of his life form, as if his organs had received a version update—a comprehensive upgrade.

After a satisfying and thorough session of cultivation, Yu Fei considered his next steps.

He still had two unequipped talents, his blue-quality [Super Speed Reaction] was waiting to be upgraded, and he had 188 Stardust remaining.

One of the two unequipped talents came from the talkative Cha Qizhe, whom he had met during the placement matches—an orange-quality eye-related talent. The other was a comical talent from an owl.

[Illusory Cicada Star Pupil]

Quality: Orange

Description: Ever-changing, nothing can hide.

Effect 1, Super-Vision: Increases long-range vision tenfold.

Effect 2, Illusory Cicada: Can "see" faint vibration trails.

[Super-Strong Cervical Spine]

Quality: Blue

Description: Immune to cervical spondylosis.

Effect: Cervical spine can rotate 360°, but remember to turn it back!

Silently calculating his Stardust points, he didn’t even have to think twice before letting [Super-Strong Cervical Spine] continue to collect dust.

His Stardust reserves were enough to upgrade [Super Speed Reaction] and open a new talent slot, so naturally, he wanted to maximize the effect.

He had Bai open the window, then brought over a beanbag chair and lay down. Warm sunlight shone on his body, and the Yang Qi between heaven and earth was absorbed and refined, transforming into surging Qi Blood. Coupled with the newly added Qian-Kun effect, his Qi Blood rapidly recovered at a visible rate.

Upgrade [Super Speed Reaction].

The Fate-Defying Bead didn’t offer an upgrade option; it directly applied a fundamental enhancement to [Super Speed Reaction].

A tingling numbness started in his brain and spread down his spine throughout his body. Yu Fei’s mind grew hazy. To an observer, he just looked like someone who had been sunbathing for too long and was drowsily drifting off to sleep, nothing out of the ordinary.

[Fleeting Instant]

Talent Quality: Purple

Description: A bug in evolution, a miracle of life.

Effect: Increases neural reaction speed by 15 times.

Waking up, Yu Fei took a moment to adjust, then closed his eyes.

When he focused his attention, Bai’s voice stretched out. "Ma...ster... you... were... a... sleep..."

He relaxed his mind, and the world instantly returned to normal. "...for 2 hours and 12 minutes~"

"Thanks for the reminder!"

After upgrading [Super Speed Reaction], the talent’s name changed to [Fleeting Instant], and his neural reaction speed had increased by 15 times.

Logically, such an extreme neural reaction speed should have created a perceptual disconnect with the slower real world. Yet, for some reason, it all felt completely normal to him, as if this was how things were always meant to be.

Talents were manifestations of a creature’s unique traits, a heaven-sent power. It was like a bird flying or a fish swimming in water—completely natural. It was logically absurd, yet it didn’t affect Yu Fei’s normal life in the slightest. It was quite marvelous.

After upgrading the talent, Yu Fei had 88 Stardust left. After opening another talent slot, he was down to 48.

Based on the cost of opening a new talent slot increasing by 10 Stardust each time, the next one would require 50. He was just 2 short.

’Should I dismantle [Super-Strong Cervical Spine]?’

A blue-quality talent would only yield 8 Stardust when dismantled. Even if he did, he wouldn’t have a new talent to equip...

Yu Fei glanced at the description for [Super-Strong Cervical Spine] again. *Cervical spine can rotate 360°.* If he equipped it, he could twist his own head around in a full circle. It seemed like it would be a lot of fun.

Forcibly suppressing the self-destructive urge, he closed his eyes and chose to equip [Illusory Cicada Star Pupil]. Instantly, a sharp, needle-like pain shot through his eyes. It wasn’t just his eyes, but all the nerves connected to them. It felt as if some latent power had been activated, a fundamental evolution.

Yu Fei feigned exhaustion and rubbed his eyes with both hands, secretly enduring the pain. He didn’t know if someone might be monitoring his every move through a video feed, so this was all he could do.

The Martial Arts Extraordinary World’s surveillance of the mortal world was so strict. By that logic, could it be that the geniuses like him were also under surveillance? He didn’t know, so he had to assume they were.

After a long time, the transformation of his eyes was complete. Yu Fei opened them.

Although [Illusory Cicada Star Pupil] was only orange-quality, it had two effects. The first was Super-Vision, increasing his long-range vision tenfold. The second effect’s description was strange: Illusory Cicada, able to "see" faint vibration trails.

Increasing long-range vision tenfold was easy to understand. From now on, Yu Fei basically had a built-in 10x scope; he wouldn’t need one for sniping.

But what did it mean to see vibration trails?

Filled with doubt, Yu Fei went to the window. Gazing into the distance, he could see a boy drenched in sweat swinging a heavy greatsword inside a window of a building far away. Flashes of blade light glinted from time to time. He estimated the distance to be about 10 kilometers. His gaze continued downward.

’Uh... do these Martial Arts University students really get this wild?’

He watched with great interest as a man and a woman "sparred" in martial arts by the window. The "battle" was intense. The woman was pressed against the window, struggling and resisting continuously. Two oval-shaped imprints were left on the glass as their bodies vibrated rhythmically.

’Is *this*... seeing vibration trails?’

Yu Fei instinctively felt that wasn’t right. After watching for a moment, he shifted his gaze elsewhere and finally noticed the real difference.

A bird flapped its wings in the sky. He saw that transparent, yet tangible, ripples spread out from the bird’s wings, gradually disappearing after a hundred meters.

Pedestrians walked on the ground, and transparent ripples spread out from where their feet landed.

The unmanned Flying Devices were the most obvious. The wave-like ripples they emitted were much larger, affecting a wide area and even attenuating and reflecting off buildings they hit.

The entire world was like a calm lake. Any object that caused a vibration was like a stone thrown into its surface, naturally creating waves.

It was as if his eyes had suddenly gained a new function, but one that operated on a separate system from his original vision. They formed a composite image together without any interference.

If so many vibration waves were visible in the real world, it would naturally interfere with one’s sense of sight, causing severe visual distortion. But in Yu Fei’s eyes, there was no interference at all. In fact, with the intuitive display of vibration waves, information became more three-dimensional, and the world felt more real.

He felt like a red-green colorblind person seeing a vibrant, colorful world for the first time. A spontaneous sense of being moved filled his heart, and his life felt more complete.

This talent came from Cha Qizhe, which meant the world looked the same way in his eyes. Cha Qizhe might have thought his eyesight was just a bit better than average, but he would never have imagined he was this special. Perhaps, among the entire human population, he was the only one.

It was like a world where all humans were red-green colorblind, and only you had normal vision. Constrained by established worldly knowledge and common sense, you wouldn’t think you were special either.

Only someone like Yu Fei, who had gone from being colorblind to having normal vision, could understand the specialness of this existence.

He stood by the window for over an hour, curiously observing this brand-new world. It took a long time for him to realize that this behavior was a bit inappropriate. So, he forced himself to mutter some profound thoughts on life aloud—a performance for an unseen audience—before finally returning to his room.

That guy Cha Qizhe was truly too lucky; he was a one-in-a-billion case. This also served as a reminder for Yu Fei. The world was vast and humanity was numerous. Perhaps in the future, he shouldn’t focus only on people with high-quality talents. Instead, he should pay attention to those with outstanding observational abilities. Even if their talents weren’t high-quality, they might be special enough.

People often overlook the things they can do with ease, but those abilities might be gifts from heaven—feats that others could never accomplish even with their utmost effort.

After calming himself down, Yu Fei put on the Holographic Mirror Helmet and continued studying general theory. In less than two weeks, he had already completed 70% of the courses and was about to meet the learning requirement.

But Yu Fei wanted to finish all the courses. For no other reason than that the information was just too fascinating. The general education content covered all aspects of the Martial Arts Extraordinary World, including a lot of common-sense knowledge. Completing it all would help him integrate better into the martial arts world.